Choices

Way back in May and June we made all of the color and style choices for our house.  It was much harder than I thought!  But one thing that everyone warned Rhett and I about never happened.  We didn't argue or even really disagree about any of the choices we picked!  I should probably be really grateful that we have such similar tastes. :)

One of our huge things that needed to be decided on was the rock color and style.  After lots of contemplating and comparing our rock choice with our siding choice to make sure they would go well together, we ended up going with Dutch Quality Sienna Weather Ledge.  The color of siding we chose was Harbor Gray.  That will be for the horizontal siding as well as the board and batten siding. 

(By the way this is not my home, it is a home in the local Parade of Homes that has the same color of siding that I chose for my home being built)

Do you like??

I love it! And I think I stayed pretty close to the color pallet I wanted to go with in this post.

There were tons of other little details that needed to be decided on for our exterior like, soffit and fascia-white, roof-midnight black, gutters-white, vents color and style-white and rectangle, and many other tiny little details. 

 I'm very happy with our over all choices and think we made the right decisions that we can be happy with for a very long time!  I just can't wait until I can see it all coming together on my house!

Progress!

It has been almost two months since I last posted!  Building has definitely changed in the last couple of months.  For instance, we have gone from building in sunny warm weather to frigid cold snowy weather.  I knew I shouldn't have been complaining about how hot it was! haha  Building in winter months definitely has its challenges, but I think we have done very well coping and keep going.  

Here is our progress!!!

                                                                     All framed in!

                                     
                                                                  Getting roof trusses on!

 
                                                                   Roof getting sheeted!

 
                   Tar paper on roof, shingles dropped off on roof, house wrap on, and windows in!

                           Doors in, tar paper and mesh on bottom of house for rock, and shingling done!

Looks like the kids are excited about our progress too!  But do you see all of those piles of snow lining the front of our house?  All of the lovely white stuff was covering our roof and had to be shoveled and swept off.  Soooooooo glad that the roof is on and we no longer have to worry about it.  Once we get the rock on then we move on into the inside and don't have to worry so much about the freezing cold!

Frame it in

Bearing walls in...  check!















Rim board and floor joists in...  check!

Walls being built... check!

Walls being lifted... check!
(Wow I look like I'm really struggling! haha)

Hold up the wall... check!

Nail wall down... check!

Take it all in... check!

Rhett and I spending half a day fixing the layout of our front window and door because they were off 18 inches... check! check!












Yeah that job really really sucked!

  

The Story of The Functional Table and Chairs

When Rhett and I first got married we were given this awesome table and chairs.

Yeah, I know it's not the most beautiful table and chairs but I was just so grateful to have anything and what they were lacking in style they definitely had in function.  So I did what I could to try to make them blend in a bit better.

(My color scheme looks very 1990's to me with the forest green and mauve haha!)


After having this look for a few years I was so ready for a change.  Some sanding blocks, a bucket of primer, and paint, this is what I ended up with!

(excuse the cute little girl trying to pour her own glass of milk, it was the only picture I had of the finished project)

The table and chairs looked so much better than what I started with, but I definitely ran out of steam with this project.  There were so many nooks and crannies in those chairs. They took foooreeevverrr to paint and the latex paint wasn't adhering very well to the metal legs and and plastic backs of the chairs.  I feel like a dummy that it didn't dawn on me that spray painting them would have been so much easier.  They ended up peeling and chipped everywhere too. I did love the new fabric I put on the seats though.... for about a week.  Having two little ones and trying to keep that fabric clean was miserable.  So when we decided to move in to Rhett's Mom's house while we were building our house, the very functional but not so beautiful table and chairs were taken to the D.I.

This was my first adventure in furniture re-do's, but definitely not my last.  I have done much more research on proper painting protocols so hopefully my next project doesn't turn out so bad.  But for now my huge ongoing project will be to get my house built! :)

It's most definitely a process

First an empty lot...

Then we staked out our lot so they could dig the hole...

Then we had our very own hole! (not sure if that sounded right!)

Footings and a foundation were next...

Then they dumped gravel into the basement and garage and we put on the window wells...

Then comes the back-filling baby!

Slowly but surely we are coming along! Can you see those other homes already framed in?  We are participating in the Mutual Self-Help housing program and we have a group of nine houses that we build collectively.  We help build their houses, they help build ours.  We have already finished framing 6 houses in two months! So our house will be one of the next ones up to start framing and I'm so excited!

We already got to do a few things to get it ready for the basement and garage floor to be poured...

Can't wait for the next step!

End of one chapter... beginning of new one

Five and a half years ago I had a baby girl that I thought would stay that way forever.  How much my sweet little brown eyed girl has grown.

So I have such a range of emotions right now, fear... did I prepare her enough? Sadness... I don't want to let that innocence she has about the world go.  Happiness... She is very smart and kind and I helped develop that beautiful chubby baby into an intelligent little person ready to take on the world Kindergarten! 

To top everything off, my baby Keegan is starting Pre-school as well!  We never sent Kalista to Pre-School, so this school thing is very new to me.  Well, not completely new.  I did go to school....for the most part ;)  To top it all off, my little Keegan will be riding the school bus to Pre-School!  I will have both of my sweet babies start school at the same time.  Not really sure how I feel about all of these changes.  But with time everything becomes easier.

Also, construction has been crazy! So crazy that I have decided to quit my job.  I will stay on as back up in case someone can't find anyone to cover their shift, but I won't have to be on the schedule.  Which will be nice.  I have not seen much of my kids this past month that we have been doing the construction work.  I have to be to work by eight so I leave before they are even up, then get home by 2:30 before I have to leave at 3:30 to get out to the construction site until 9:30-10:00.  So a lot of days I have only seen my kids for one hour out of the day.  It has been awful on me as well as them.

The Plans...

Our Home!!!!

There are so many things I love about this home.  The long front porch, the added details of the different pitches with the vertical siding, the cultured stone that runs along the bottom of the home, the list goes on and on.... <3 

This is the upstairs floorplan.  I'm super excited about the mudroom off of the garage, and the walk-in closet in the master bedroom.  I'm convinced I will be able to keep my house a whole lot cleaner because of them! haha




 Anyway, I'm still trying to decide on colors for the exterior of the home so if you have any suggestions let me know!  I know I want a color in this pallet but still not sure exactly which one.

Approved!!!

That's right! Our house got approved on our corner building lot and I'm so excited!  We went to a meeting yesterday to sign some papers and go over our house plans and it felt very surreal.  I never thought I would be able to have my own home.  I of course always dreamed of it.  But after living in apartments most of my life, this just seems like a dream.  Like I will just wake up and it will all be gone.  I just need to stay positive!


Anyway... here is what our lot looks like. 

                                                           This is the view from the corner

                                     This is the view from where the front of the house will be




 I know it doesn't look like much yet, but I cannot wait until it transforms into home.  I will be back later to post our house plan!

Cha-Cha-Changes...

OK, things have been super crazy around here!  We received the news on May 18th that we were approved for a program to build our very own home!!!  I still can't believe it!  We picked out the perfect house plan that we fell in love with and the lot we wanted.

Then came the bad news.... the plan that we wanted we couldn't get for a couple of different reasons (same plan next door, house doesn't fit the lot).  So then we went to plan B and asked if we could get our second choice in house plans.  That was a no go for the same reason that it did not fit our lot.  Seriously?!  How could we go from such a high to a low so quickly?

Then we received a phone call later last night saying that they are going to try and see if there is anyway they can make the house we want work on that lot if it is situated differently.  I am just hoping and praying there is some way they can make it work.